Along with a new business website soft launch, we recently wrapped a 9-month a music documentary short, Selva Oscura. Now starts the endless months of waiting for film festival selections, but we now have our first selection for the project. Selva is headed to the Erie International Film Festival in December 2017. It’s a good way to kick off the end of year festivities for all who made it a pleasure to work on this project.

There are many paths that can lead us through The Creative Block. For me, being hyper-curious is method I learned when the block is spotted on the horizon and before it heads my way. It’s a preemptive exercise that helps me avoid being blocked. It’s wanting to know about people, about cities, about places and about other ways of thinking. It’s about being constantly curious and that stems from the journalist in me. Now that the disruptive economy seems to be the standard, it’s a also thought process that has become a daily ritual that helps me adapt and reinvent on demand.

We all have heard or read that “Survival is The New Success.” Even if it’s a bit of a gloomy outlook, there’s truth in that statement. But a disruptive economy is nothing to fear as long as we are willing to adapt. So it’s not just curiosity that we need, it’s a willingness to adopt a different mindset as professional storytellers. And that’s where using creative methods fueled by curiosity comes into play.

Being creative is most often thought of in visual art-based professions to be about fundamentals. Like how we apply rules of composition, use of color, light…so lots of things. But at a different level, it’s about generating ideas and the uniqueness of an image, idea or a story.

So now that curiosity is part of my daily routine I revisit old projects that have been completed. Is there something I missed and can I bring new life to it? And can I find ways to monetize them again? If we dig up those remnants, we can often find unexplored aspects and give them new life. But that’s only part of the equation. There’s plenty of new work to pursue and how do we find that sidebar within the main narrative.

A perfect example is when we started working on the documentary Beyond the Breaker. We had to dive into a foreign culture and again experience what happens often with documentary work. We can start in one direction and discover the most interesting story was elusive and buried in the details that we had yet to discover.

So besides our crash course into coal and how its extraction shaped that region for generations, especially in the context of cultural identity, we also learned about the legacy environmental problems that continue to plague Pennsylvania. There are over 5,000 miles of dead streams in Pennsylvania due to acid mine drainage. We learned that from EPCAMR whose purpose is to map and clean the waterways affected by mining. But we also learned about coal mine fires. Centralia is a pop-culture destination and the unfortunate tourist attraction. But it’s only one of approximately 80 sites (no one really knows the exact number since these fires are out of sight/mind) in Pennsylvania that have either underground fires where coal seams will burn for hundreds of years, or bank fires that stress the surrounding communities. (Culm banks are those low altitude mounds of mining waste that look like small black mountains scattered throughout Pennsylvania’s landscape).

So where does being creative come in to play? We decided since there already were several films about Centralia, one of the latest, Centralia: Pennsylvania’s Lost Town directed by our colleague Joe Sapienza, we needed a different focus rather than revisiting the stories of the people who once lived there. And upon discovering there are many more coal fueled fires not just in Pennsylvania, or the U.S., we learned mine fires are a world-wide issue.

That led us to create a short film title Scorched that’s making its way around the film festival circuit in 2017-18. There were several goals for Scorched. The main and obvious one was telling the story and increasing awareness starting with Pennsylvania’s fires. A question I had as proof of method was, would our “sidebar” story pass the test of using a hyper-curious approach and yield a creative solution? So far, Yes. We’ve had great feedback, the most important words Tell Us More are always brought up during feedback and post film watching conversation. Lastly, producing Scorched (watch our trailer here) has created opportunities for new work by meeting new clients.

What I’ve learned long ago and what still proves to be effective no matter what you do when technology disrupts us is that we are all hungry for stories. And being curious feeds the creative mind.

John Welsh is a photographer & storyteller from Philadelphia as well as a director on the National Board of ASMP. He’s a refugee from the land of photojournalism still manages to carve out some truth for his clients.

It’s strange how life’s detours can take you on different paths really fast. In this case, I had the opportunity to try out some filmmaking ideas in the depths of winter. And I mean deep in the Pennsylvania winter, in 8 degree weather on a Northeast PA mountainside while searching for coal mine fires when it was cold enough to make cell phones freeze.

We’ve been working on Beyond the Breaker, the Huber Breaker documentary for several years (and looking to release in 2018). Along the way we discovered a significant amount of what plagues Pennsylvania from an environmental perspective. And we aren’t talking about current coal mining issues that are politically supercharged. This is about what was left in the wake when coal operators abandoned their ships and left parts of Pennsylvania in a state of ruin.

We have experienced wading through dead streams the color of rust, or in more technical terms, AMD (Abandoned Mine Drainage) but we also tripped over an obscure and overlooked issue. Coal mine fires. Most people’s knowledge of mine fires stop at Centralia. But that’s just one location out of 80 or so in Pennsylvania. It’s ridiculous and frustrating how these issues have been left mostly unchecked and how Pennsylvania has turned its back on the mining towns that once carried our society into modernity. These fires will last for decades, if not longer, and barely anything is being done to fix this problem.

So, challenge completed and successful. Scorched is currently making it’s way around the country and being shown in several film festivals. While festivals are sometimes thought of as merely vanity events, they are good places to network and compare your content to work being created by other filmmakers and should be one piece of an overall business strategy that can help you gain exposure.

And to throw in some basic policy that’s being ignored (and why we do documentary work) here’s that bit about the right to good health in the Pennsylvania Constitution:

Article 1, Section 27:

“The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic, and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all of the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.”

Life is about relationships and so is success. And since business is part of life, then success in business must also involve relationships, right?

Perhaps there’s flawed logic in that claim, but I believe it’s true. And as each year passes and brings with it “better” technology, it leaves us with very little face time to develop our business relationships that last. It become increasingly difficult to carve our niches as photographers, but the technology is here and we need to use it well.

The danger of being lost in the crowd would still be there even if we were competing only with each other (meaning other professionals) and didn’t include the hordes of People With Cameras who chip away at our perceived value and create a huge distraction – one that leads our clients away from us. So how do we steer the attention back to us?

I was never disciplined enough to create traditional mailing campaigns. Of course, that’s not the only way to get noticed (though it can be highly successful if done well). Mailings, whether electronic or in print, are part of a tool kit we all need. The important part is that we recognize the right tool, one that uses our strengths.

Coming from the business of photographing for newspapers, I learned to connect with people quickly and genuinely. It’s something we all had to do to get the best photograph. Connecting with people has helped me create successful images and it also has helped me build relationships.

So instead of plugging away diligently through mailing lists and follow-ups, I toss myself out there at multi-disciplinary workshops where I enjoy attending and speak about new projects, or I engage clients, old or new, and talk about the projects that fuel me creatively. Enthusiasm isn’t dangerous, it’s not the flu, but if genuine, it’s highly contagious and it’s something that’s totally ok to pass along.

Sometimes connections form quickly, and I build relationships that generate success. And sometimes there’s nothing gained directly, though going through the repeated repetitions help me polish social skills.

Regardless of the tool you choose, it’s about putting yourself out there, showing your best work and your best self. Crafting your approach to clients in intelligent and creative ways is what makes us stand out as professionals. It’s what steers attention back to us and proves our value. And it’s what will keep this ship we are all on afloat.

(Above, a short video created to show flavor of the NEPA coal mining region & community for the film, Beyond the Breaker, and where we found the title from John Kish, former town barber in Ashley, Pennsylvania).

Hunting, Fishing & Drilling. Those are three things a traveler expects to find in the northern parts of Pennsylvania these days. But I also relate them to the capture and editing of video and they help me frame how to improve being a professional storyteller.

Most of my storytelling experience comes from working as a photojournalist. Of course, I’ve worked with writers while photographing stories, but my best work is shot while alone. During my evolution when I first integrated video to my still photography, and while Hunting for stories, I purposefully worked alone. And during interviews, when I Fish, I’m often on my own, tossing tightly focused questions to my subjects hoping to reel in a gem contained within a soundbite.

Working alone has tradeoffs. Specifically, the amount of equipment to setup plus your ability to divide attention between camera, audio and interviewing. But I think for anyone starting off, it’s perfectly fine to toss yourself into the fire, in a low risk situation (like a personal project), and see what you can create.

When it comes to The Edit, I think of the Drilling. It’s how you go into the deeper parts of the story and find your cinematic gold.

Often, I’m aware of the perfect sentence that sums up the entire story as soon as it’s spoken; and when it’s memorable, you don’t even need to keep notes. That clip is probably the first one you’ll watch upon initial review, and it will probably guide you towards your first cut.

But what about the hidden elements of a story? Ones that are really important and ones that are buried within longer questions. An example comes to mind regarding a documentary about community identity and the history of the coal industry.

We’ve interviewed former miners, historians, state politicians and even the former Ashley, Pennsylvania town barber. And while we were using a wide net to gather these stories, we didn’t have a title even after a year of filming. That’s until we reviewed (and drilled into) an interview with the town barber. There, within an interview we weren’t sure we would ever use, we found our film’s title. It was incredibly obvious in hindsight, but without a thorough review process, and hours of drilling, we may have been searching a lot longer.

So is it best to work alone? Maybe. You’ll make mistakes for sure, but as long as you view them as part of learning, it’s important to experience the entire process on your own.

Should you edit alone? Also a “Maybe.”‘ If you are an accomplished shooter and can communicate your vision to an editor, then it’s very efficient and the right editor can transform your work in amazing ways.

But at some point, whether it’s a solo attempt at a short film, a spec commercial or creating an About Page video , it’s worth the time you’ll invest even if you feel like you are fumbling. What you’ll learn is far greater than the energy spent to learn new software and the mechanics of workflow.

John Welsh is a photographer & storyteller from Philadelphia as well as a director on the National Board of ASMP. He’s a refugee from the land of photojournalism and still manages to carve out some truth for his clients.

Grow or Die. Scary words, right? They speak of challenge and failure. Those words have been floating around this disruptive digital economy for several years. But they really have always been part of the business cycle. And those words also motive us to create, and the concept of a constantly evolving cycle should become a permanent part of our thinking rather than something to fear.

“Growth can be good and growth can be bad. Bigger can be good and bigger can be bad. ‘Grow or die’ is a belief that has no basis in scientific research or in business reality. When not approached carefully, growth can destroy value as it outstrips a company’s managerial capacity, processes, quality controls and financial controls, or substantially dilutes customer value propositions.”

From Hess’ academic point of view, he’s spot on since he’s approaching it objectively. There is no basis in a strictly business reality. But I feel regarding creative growth, which is essential to our businesses, the concept is absolutely true.

If we don’t surpass our boundaries, stagnation occurs and that causes all kinds of messy things to happen plus it leads to the demise of new ideas and paths to explore. The evidence for this truth is the need to create the “Personal Work” category found in all of our portfolios. It’s also found in the way we perceive ourselves, we are now Storytellers not just Photographers, right? Or maybe we are Producers or Directors.

So use whatever terms you prefer to define the cycle of improvement, but Grow or Die is surely not a concept to be feared, it’s one to be embraced.

John Welsh is a photographer & storyteller from Philadelphia as well as a director on the National Board of ASMP. His latest challenge, other than writing about himself in the third person, is one of extreme growth and involves figuring what it really means to strategize content creation…or die trying.

Giving Back to your community, your profession, your colleagues, to whomever – it’s a good thing. It creates community and it’s something we need when facing the challenges within the new marketplace.

But what about Taking Back? It may be more important than giving in this state of unsettling business practice. We need to find ways that empower and let us to play on level fields; ones that allow us to thrive in healthy working environments. I’m not a believer that great art comes from great suffering.

I recently had the opportunity to sift through old letters while archiving materials from ASMP’s founding members. The struggle to be taken seriously as professionals was just as prevalent 50 years ago as it is today. I can’t say I’m shocked that in the early years, those in the business world were trying to define the process of taking a photograph and deem it a commodity. What does shock me is how we are still fighting that battle.

So how can we be taken seriously as image creators? And how can we bring in enough income to live comfortably so we are free from the stresses that block creativity? This has been a common topic since we embraced the digital image and it will continue to be until we learn to navigate the evolving markets.

It’s time to talk about our legacy. It’s time to demonstrate the visual sophistication we inherited from those who came before us and show how our work can float high above the image that’s good enough. Maybe it’s time to resurrect The Print as a deliverable. Even though I’m completely into the technology that enables us to compete, I think paying tribute to the old ways may be one of several strategies we need to adopt.

What am I going to do this fall in preparation for 2016? I aim to educate my clients, to sell ideas, to sell quality and to differentiate my work from what the masses are pumping out on Instagram. Will it be easy? Probably not. Will it be successful, well, it won’t if I’m the only one thinking this way (and surely I am not).

So in addition to working towards sharing photographic enlightenment, I’m going to toss the challenge to everyone reading this and ask what you can do to regain the clout we need as image creators and then tell me about your successes and failures.

John Welsh is a photographer & storyteller from Philadelphia as well as a director on the National Board of ASMP. He’s a leftover photojournalist who STILL can’t believe the many failed newspapers he worked for actually thought it was good business to give their product away.

Perspective. Observation. Clarity. These words help me find vision. And vision is something we need in order to differentiate ourselves within the horde that’s creating images. But I believe these words are also a component and fundamental layer in storytelling.

So, what if we took the Big Bang Theory and applied it to storytelling? That the moment of creation is when the story begins to have structure. That it’s something tangible. That if you inserted all of your facts and research on a story into the three act formula, the result would be that moment. But what happens before the Big Bang moment?

Perspective

First, you must have one regarding your story and you must apply it. For a moment forget objectivity if you come from a journalistic background. Of course you must maintain ethics, but your vision is created from being subjective.

Perspective also can be used as a tool. The same story can be told from different points of view. Finding the viewpoint for your story is a key part of the information gathering process and deciding how to tell it. Brainstorming other POV’s is a great way to get around roadblocks; it’s an important tool to have in the box.

Observation

This is a quality we already mastered when creating still images. It’s so ingrained in our thinking it’s hard to extract the idea from our thought process. It’s something we just do. But how do we use it when storytelling?

A great exercise is to engage in people watching. Do it whenever you have a few free minutes. (Airports are great places to practice.) Become a harmless stalker. Learn to read people, their reactions, their motivations. And if you want to go for gold, engage in conversation with strangers and take the next step as if you were interviewing a subject. You have nothing at stake, you’re just honing your skills of observation.

Clarity

Learn to be clear. Learn to be direct. Ask others who understand story telling for blunt force feedback and become comfortable with it. Sure, it can be a shot to the ego, but you’ll need to get past that to grow as a storyteller.

In an effort to find clarity you may also have to go off on wild tangents. While they often turn out to be nothing more than distractions, exploring an alternate direction can sometimes lead to clarity. You may discover what’s important to cut from your story. Exploring tangents can also lead you to undiscovered perspectives and aid your story’s journey into existence, so don’t rule them out entirely.

John Welsh is a photographer from Philadelphia and, in an effort to keep himself sane, tries not to think about what was there before the cosmological Big Bang moment (if that truly is how we all got here).

I have yet to meet a photographer who has an identical story; that is, one that relates to their ability to survive and have longevity in the profession. And you, the reader, may want to optimistically replace survive with thrive. It’s a massive gray area and one that’s relative. But forget about semantics. It doesn’t matter if you make 50k or 500k, this is about adaptation.

If I rewind to 1987, I think of photo school graduation and a few full time gigs shortly after (monitoring C-41 process, B&W mural printing, retouching prints using oil paint, retouch spray and colored pencils). Those jobs enabled me to purchase basic equipment. I then think of how there was a limited future in those jobs since I needed to shoot.

So I bailed and thought, “How creative can I be?” I ventured into foreign lands: Fashion Photography. Loved the work but hated the business practices I discovered.

Moving on I strung together odd freelance jobs, met lots of other photographers, did some basic Public Relations photography and had my first big “break” at a small college that paid 25.00 per hour freelance rate. At the time it was an acceptable path given my experience (very little) and they were taking a chance by hiring me.Then a job as a staffer at a small newspaper opened up and I found my match. That lasted 18 years and ended with the recession that’s still waving its hands in our rear view mirror. But it was an amazing leap.

I was there to witness technology as it rolled through the industry and flattened The Old Ways. I saw the composing room switch from paste-up & hot wax to QuarkXpress. During that leap we transitioned from printing photographs to scanning negatives to digital capture. And this was before video entered the scene.

That brings me to the present. There are hardly any news outlets that are viable career options for lots of us. Instead I have taken another evolutionary step (it wasn’t an option, it was a choice I needed to make in order to survive) and in addition to maintaining a freelance business, I found a business partner and we brought a new production company into existence.

The really long evolutionary distance in 28 years of shooting I experienced was only possible by one method of travel…Small Steps.

Collaboration. New Media. Re-purposing Content. Audience Building. These trendy buzzwords are reflective of how we’ve evolved as image making pros, but what do we do with them? You’ll have to find your own answer but maybe mine will help…

Although I like gadgets and enjoy exploring new tech and social outlets, I always end up to going back to the fundamentals, the Old School, and bring attention to what we do best – tell stories. A form of expression we’ve been doing all the way back to torchlit caves in primitive times. My newest project brings both of these impulses together in the “reboot” of an old project:

The Old Project

A seven year documentary-meets-fine-art landscape still photography project shot in Iceland from 2001 to 2008. End result: several exhibits, printed catalog, short memoir flavored text to go with it and a website to support the project. All that was missing was the Holy Grail/Coffee Table book.

The Reboot

Same images, totally different theme and approach. It’s now way more than an exhibition of prints. It dives into the travel memoir and will be supported by imagery that’s relevant to the project and expands on the new theme (which is currently being refined and locked down).

Start with a Plan

Adding a thematic and almost literary component to the Reboot sounds great but how can I make it work? Sure, an exhibition is obvious and will be launched after the initial showing of this in-flux creation. But how else can it be expanded? Creating video content is obvious. A short self-promotional documentary (without the ego) that digs into the motivations behind that project could work. I want to get personal with my audience since that’s a trend that I believe always has universal appeal. Sure, the images are already an extension of that, but there’s so much more to explore using video and interviews and music.

Add in Collaboration

A good friend who has been working with me on a film score has been recruited for this project. Sure, I need a short atmospheric score created for this piece, but why not take it an extra step? Why not shoot the behind the scenes music creation process, then edit it seamlessly into a live performance recording of the score. Maybe two versions are created, one for the project and one that’s a separate music video. Cross promotion is key.

Then Make it Bigger

To honor the inner tech geek in me, there are two words that may be a huge success for this project. Projection Mapping. It’s one thing to make all of these slick cutaways while performing an edit when telling a story. But I feel that many layers of a story are often hidden since all we have is one screen at a time to view. Here’s where PM enters. Simple concept. It’s a one projector show, with multiple video feeds projected onto whatever shape or sized surface you can create… Now, it’s imagination time.

My story ends here since the project is still in progress. Where it goes from here will be up to me and my ability to build a successful team. Its success will depend on finding new audiences to introduce to my capabilities and “rebooting” my established audience so they can see another dimension of my work. Will it work? I sure hope so. If nothing else, it will be a great example of how all these trends can come together to make something old new again.

John Welsh is Philadelphia based photographer and wrapping up his term as president of the Philadelphia ASMP chapter and looking forward to diving headlong into future trends. Sheila Hershey is a composer based in Delaware and is one of several that are part of the official Reboot crew.